


Revenge Is Never A Straight Line

by gladiatorgrl2703



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (not sorry), Adopted Children, Badass Neil Josten, Blood, Child Death, Coma, Dark Neil Josten, Dark!Neil, Kill Bill AU, M/M, Most of the Foxes Die, Murder, Neil is "The Bride" Thanks For Asking, Tarantino Level Violence, Violence, assassinations, deadly viper assassination squad - Freeform, sorry - Freeform, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:39:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladiatorgrl2703/pseuds/gladiatorgrl2703
Summary: Kill Bill AU in which Neil descends on a path of bloody vengeance to eliminate each entry on his Death List Five. He never thought Riko would be the one to put a bullet in his brain. Never imagined Riko would try to kill his number two and three. But with Andrew gone, and their daughter gone with him, Neil has nothing to lose when he wakes from his coma four years later.---“Are you going to be nice?” Neil asked, a small smile on his lips. Riko was in a suit.“I’ve never been nice in my whole life. But I’ll do my best to be sweet.”“What are you doing here, Riko?”“That is a question, I suppose I should be asking you.” Riko glanced towards the open doors of the chapel. “And I suppose it’s Minyard who is in there with you? Or is it all coincidence that my number two and three left me at the same time?”“You never did believe much in coincidences, did you?”“No,” Riko said softly, a slow smile on his lips. “I never much did.”





	1. Prologue

It was the sound of his own voice, begging and whimpering, that snapped Neil Josten back to consciousness. 

There was no temperature registering in his mind. No feeling he could hold onto as he struggled to make sense of what was going on around him. He wasn’t sure if he was hot, or cold, or somewhere in between. The only thing he could feel beyond the searing stings of torn wounds was the clamminess of his skin where it stuck to the blood-soaked hardwood of the church floor. 

He turned his head as much as his neck would allow, the lacerations along his skin protesting with even the smallest movement. His teeth clenched as he heard the sound of boots approaching. It took considerable effort to make out the noise over the intense panting as Neil tried to calm himself. 

“Do you find me sadistic?” It was a voice Neil knew well that asked. The man bent down with a handkerchief to wipe at the blood trailing down Neil’s cheek. “I’d like to believe, even now, that you are aware enough to know there is nothing sadistic about my actions. Not towards you.” 

He stood, righting himself before sticking the handkerchief in his pocket. 

“No, kiddo. When it comes to you, I’m no sadist.” Bullets jostled as they were pulled from a small cloth pouch at the man's hip. They were slowly loaded into a pistol. Neil could do nothing but watch in complete shock, his breathing picking up as he tried to get his tongue to work. It was fat in his mouth, choking him in his desperation to explain, to get him to stop. 

“This is me at my most masochistic,” the man said finally, cocking the gun and steadying it towards Neil’s head. 

“Riko…” Neil started, body protesting and bones groaning as he tried to move closer, tried to bring himself as close to Riko as he could. “It’s—” 

The sound of the gun didn’t register fast enough for Neil to hear the shot that went into his skull. But in his very last moment, he saw Riko’s eyes widen in surprise as he cut off a confession he’d waited thirteen months to hear.


	2. Number 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil visits the second person on his Death List Five--Nicky Hemmick.

The City of PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

 

The address of the small green house, around the corner from the cul-de-sac, was 5504 Pleasant Street. As Neil walked up the steps, he took in the playhouse and scooters littering the front lawn. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised when he learned that Nicky had a family, but it was hard to deny the evidence of it now.

Neil pressed his finger against the doorbell, listening for footsteps over the cheerful chiming. It turned out he didn’t need to be listening quite so carefully. Complacency had made Nicky careless.

“Coming!” Nicky called from the inside. Neil steadied his footing, preparing for when he opened the door. Nicky’s voice continued from inside the house. “I cannot believe you are early, Sarah.”

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off as he wrenched the door open. Shock registered the moment before Neil’s fist connected with his face. But Nicky wasn’t so out of practice that he allowed that to keep him in a precarious situation. As he flew back against the wall of the entranceway, he wrapped his hands around the first object he could find and flung it towards Neil.

The crystal bowl flew from Nicky’s hand and shattered against the wall next to Neil’s head as he dodged out of the way. Neil kicked out into Nicky’s chest, and Nicky used that momentum to fling Neil against the mirror lining the hallway of the house’s entrance.

Neil grunted as the glass shattered. His jacket did a reasonably good job of blocking any jagged edges of glass from penetrating his back or shoulders, but he felt blood escaping at the back of his head. He rolled as he fell to the floor, throwing Nicky off balance as he tried to bring his foot down harshly against Neil’s chest. Using his position on the floor, Neil kicked out into Nicky’s knee before knocking him back with a sharp kick to the jaw. The connection sent a crack through the air.

The hit brought Nicky off balance, teetering over the back of his couch and onto the coffee table that waited on the other side of the cushions. The coffee table disintegrated on impact, glass and broken wood falling under the weight of Nicky’s body. For half a moment, Nicky lay stunned--his labored breathing cut by a low groan as he tried to move away from the broken glass.

Neil jumped over the couch, prepared to finish Nicky off in two final moves, but Nicky had other plans. Grabbing hold of one of the broken table legs, Nicky hit Neil’s knee as hard as he could, the solid wood letting out a deafening crunch against the strength of Neil’s bone.

Neil let out a low howl, dropping down from his fighter's stance as pain shot through his leg. Nicky didn't hesitate as he once again swung the wood out into the air, aiming for Neil’s head before Neil dropped onto his back. He narrowly avoided Nicky’s assault but found himself once again in too compromising of a position to feel satisfied with. Nicky stood up quickly, before pulling his glass and metal bookshelf off the wall and onto Neil.

Nicky darted off for the kitchen as Neil carefully untucked himself from all of the glass scattered around him. When he could stand, he raced after Nicky, who was now brandishing a butcher's knife he'd grabbed from his kitchen counter.

The blade sliced out through the air of the kitchen, and Neil grabbed the closest defensive tool he could find—a cast iron skillet—to block off Nicky’s attacks.

Nicky was as fast as he had been when they were still working for the same side, with sharp biting attacks that left no room for error. And he threw jabs with every cut he made in the air.

“What are you going to do now, huh?” Nicky asked as he advanced. Every lunge he made for Neil, Neil only just barely countered. Close combat had not been his specialty.

“Remember that?” The blade cut along the back of Neil’s hand, causing him to drop the frying pan. "How about this?"

Neil grabbed for Nicky’s hand, stopping the blade from his throat, before pushing him back and jumping out of the way.

It only bought Neil a few seconds, but it was enough to unsheathe the blade he’d had at his thigh.

As soon as Neil held it in his hand, Nicky smiled.

"You look good with that blade in your hand, Nathaniel."

Somehow, in the attacks Nicky had led, they’d made it back into the living room. Nicky kicked glass and scrap wood out from behind him without turning his eyes away from Neil.

“Come on,” he taunted. He adjusted the angle of his knife and beckoned for Neil to come within the range of his weapon.

They weren’t more than a few inches apart, arms extending out with their blades as the rest of their bodies leaned as far away from each other as they could get.

Nicky’s steps backward were slow, calculated, but the smile on his face showed a rush Neil was all too familiar with. It was the same look Nicky had on the day he'd murdered Andrew.

It was silent, except for the crunching of glass under their feet, for several long moments. That is until a bright yellow school bus came rolling down the street. Both Neil and Nicky could see it through the window in their peripheral vision. The air shifted as the bus pulled to a stop in front of the house.

The smile on Nicky’s face faltered as he glanced out the window briefly. A small child was coming off the steps of the bus, two large puffs of hair tied up with a pink ribbon and a matching pink backpack and sweater.

The bus rolled away as the girl started up the path to the house.

Nicky's eyes kept jumping from Neil to the window, and as the girl got closer, his eyebrows twitched together more desperately. Neil felt it, a pull at the edges of his chest, where discomfort of what would happen when this girl watched her father die in front of her eyes. 

As the girl turned the doorknob, Nicky shook his head, and at the last moment, he Neil hid their knives behind their backs. A temporary promise not to fight in font of the child. 

“Daddy, I’m home,” the girl sang as she pulled open the front door.

Upon seeing Neil and Nicky, she stopped, small hand still on the doorknob.

“Hi, baby. How was school?”

The girl completely ignored the question, surveying the damage in the house and the blood on her father’s face.

“Daddy, what happened to you and the living room?”

“Oh,” Nicky smiled, still short of breath from the fight. “That good for nothing dog of yours got his ass in the living room and acted a damn fool.”

“Buster did this?” The little girl asked in surprise, stepping closer to examine more of the space.

Nicky’s free hand went up immediately.

“Now, there’s a lot of broken glass so I don’t want you coming over here until I can clean it up.”

She wasn’t listening. Her eyes had found Neil’s, and she was staring into him so profoundly Neil was sure she could read every intent coming off his body. Nicky was quick to step in.

“This is an old friend of Daddy’s that I haven’t seen in a while,” Nicky said.

“Hi. I’m Neil. What’s your name?”

The girl continued to stare, unspeaking.

“Her name is Vernita.”

“Vernita,” Neil repeated. “How old are you?”

“Vernita, Neil asked you a question.” Nicky's voice was low, soft but filled with a tension that pulled Vernita's eyes away from Neil.

She glanced briefly at her mother, before looking back to Neil. The surprise had seeped from her eyes a bit as she glanced at the tops of her sneakers. Neil followed her gaze. The bright pink rubber of her soles rocked back and forth on a splotch of blood that had spread across the carpet.

"I'm four." 

Neil couldn't help bile rise up his throat, and the matching anger that attached. 

"You know. I had a daughter once. She would have been about four years old now." 

Nicky eye's flicked uncomfortably from Neil to Vernita, before he moved closer. 

"Now. Neil and I have some grown-up talking to do, so I want you to head upstairs and wait until I tell you to come out." 

Vernita's eyes stay fixed on Neil. Even as Nicky brought a hand up. He snapped his finger and spoke in rushed, low tones as Spanish flew from his lips. 

"Va a tu cuarto." Nicky kept Vernita's eyes. "Ahora." 

Vernita watched Neil carefully as she made her way out of the room and up the stairs to her bedroom. Nicky stood up, wiping some blood from his brow across the back of his hand. He turned to Neil, and with a small sigh lowered his knife from behind back so it dangled uselessly at his side. 

“You want some coffee?”

“Yeah,” Neil said, sheathing his knife. “Why not?”

Nicky turned around, heading back to the kitchen, leaving Neil unattended in the living room. As he rounded the corner and disappeared from Neil's sight, Neil let out a short breath. He took in the details of the living room, giving himself a moment to catch his breath before moving.

The Pasadena homemaker’s name in house number 5504 was Jamie Klose. Husband of the one illustrious Dr. Erik Klose. Both the house and the man looked the part. Blown-up photographs of the family were hung up around the home, and the kitchen was spotless. Everything had a place, and every place had a thing. It was, by most normal standards, a perfectly adequate, perfectly efficient home.

But when Neil had been aquatinted with the man in front of him four years ago, his name had been Nicky Hemmick. His codename: Copperhead.

As Nicky stood over the sink and prepared coffee to brew in the bright yellow coffee-maker, Neil remembered every detail of what fighting at Hemmick's side had felt like. It was not a feeling Neil wanted to remember fondly. For several moments, as the coffee brewed, Nicky stared out the small window above the sink. The only sound that filled the small kitchen was the bubbling of the coffee machine.

“Take a towel,” Nicky said suddenly as he grabbed one from the sink. He threw it on the countertop near where Neil was standing before turning back towards the coffee pot. “Still take it black?”

“Yeah.” Neil scrapped the towel down his face, wiping at the blood from the small cuts their fight had resulted in before wrapping the towel tightly around the area of his wrist that Nicky had managed to gash open with his butcher knife. The coffee maker beeped, indicating the coffee was ready.

“So,” Nicky said as he poured Neil a cup of coffee. “It’s kind of late for an apology, I’m guessing.”

“You guess correctly,” Neil said evenly.

Nicky sets the cup down hard on the counter and walks up, so he is directly in front of Neil.

“Look, Neil. I know you're angry and mildly psychotic, but I need to know if you’re going to start any shit in front of my daughter.”

He was pissed, visibly so. Though Neil supposed it was a toss-up of whether he was just indignant that Neil had bothered to come back from the dead or fear for losing a life Nicky had managed to piece together for himself that manifested itself into reverting into a killer. It hadn’t taken much to get either of them started in this line of work, and Neil supposed it wouldn’t take much to get Nicky back into it. His eyes were pleading despite the firm set of his jaw. It was a look he quite enjoyed seeing on Nicky’s face.

“I’m not going to murder you in front of your child,” Neil said sweetly, a faint smile painted across his lips. "So you can relax, for now."

Nicky looked Neil up and down, surprised but guarded.

“That’s more rational than I remember you being.”

At that Neil laughed. “It’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality.”

Nicky frowned, discomfort fixed across his features before he turned back towards the coffee pot. He set the mug down on the counter before returning to his original position across the kitchen.

“Look. We fucked you over. We all did. I understand you wanting to get even—”

“Even?” Neil laughed. He felt his father’s smile widen on his face. “No, no, no, no.” He shook his head. “No. For us to be even? I’d have to kill you, go upstairs and kill your daughter. Then I would wait until your husband came home and kill him. That would be even, Nicky. That’d be about square.”

“If I could go back and change things, I would. But I can’t. All I can tell you is that I’m a different person now.”

“Oh, really? That’s great.” Neil said, feigning enthusiasm. “I don’t care. You and I have unfinished business and not a goddamn fucking thing you’ve done in the past four years, including shooting a load into a plastic cup, is going to change that.”

Nicky steeled himself. “So, when do you do this?”

“That all depends on when you want to die.”

“How’s tonight?”

“Splendid. Where?”

“Baseball diamond just west of here where I coach little league.” There was a glimmer in Nicky’s eyes that reminded Neil of when they’d first met. “Let’s have ourselves a knife fight.”

“Dressed all in black.”

“Naturally. Now,” Nicky brought a hand up very suddenly, causing Neil to switch his footing in anticipation. “I have to fix my daughter’s cereal.”

Neil backed himself up to lean against the wall while Nicky pulled a cereal box, spoon, and bowl from the cupboard off to the side.

“Riko always said you were one of the best people he’d known with an edged weapon.”

“Fuck you,” Nicky said with heat. “You know how he quantified that shit.” Nicky brought a hand up to his cheekbone, completely devoid of any mark. Nicky turned towards the fridge. Before pulling out a carton of milk, he shook his head. “I didn’t even get a number. So you can kiss my ass, Black Mamba.” He said Neil’s codename derisively, putting in all of his venom, so his sarcasm dripped with it.

“Not a matter of preference, Copperhead. You remember how he decided to give the tattoos. You wanted to stick with your butcher knife, and that was fine with me.”

Nicky turned to him, hand still in the cereal box from where he had been unwrapping the plastic bag that held the small cornflakes. A smile was on his face.

“Hilarious, Josten.” Neil felt his face mirror Nicky’s. “Fucking hilarious!”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, the sound of a gunshot cracked through the air of the small kitchen. Nicky held firmly to the cereal box that had been concealing the weapon, even as devastation spread across his face when he missed.

Maybe it was nerves, or adrenaline, or luck that caused the bullet to land just shy of Neil’s head. But before, Nicky could get another shot out, Neil dropped his coffee cup towards the ground, kicking out at it, so it connected by Nicky’s head across the kitchen as he ducked.

Nicky flinched out the way in surprise before trying to re-aim.

It was a fruitless endeavor. Neil’s hand followed through on a knife he’d sent gliding in the air. He stayed there for a moment, holding his stance even after the blade pierced Nicky’s chest and sent him crumpling to the ground.

There was no doubt in Neil’s mind as he walked closer, feet stepping on the cornflakes that had erupted hopelessly over the linoleum of the kitchen, that Nicky was dead. Neil was almost mournful that it had happened this way. He would have been lying to himself if he had wanted the death to be easy, lesser still for Nicky to have a clean death when he was hardly deserving of it. And after Neil’s fight with Renee, he had expected all of the members of the former Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to go down with a battle that would nearly kill him each time.

When he dislodged the knife from Nicky’s dead body, wiping it clean against the fabric of his pant leg, he heard movement as small feet crunched on the cereal behind him.

Neil just barely looked over his shoulder at the little girl behind him before turning back towards Nicky’s body.

“It was not my intention to do this in front of you. For that, I’m sorry. But you can take my word for it. Your father had it coming.”

Neil took a deep breath before turning to look at her.

She was calm—eyes curious and mouth level. She was an assassin’s daughter.

“When you grow up,” Neil said, keeping eye contact with her. “If you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting for you to come to find me.”

He held her gaze a moment longer before walking out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out the still open front door. When Neil pulled open the door to the giant yellow truck he had stolen, he finally allowed himself a deep breath.

It wasn’t until he flipped open the notebook he kept with him to the first page and crossed out the name Nicky Hemmick that he felt his heart, just for a moment, still its indignant rage.

**Death List Five**

~~1\. Renee O-ren Ishii~~   
~~Cottonmouth~~

~~2\. Nicky Hemmick~~   
~~Copperhead~~

3\. Aaron Minyard   
Sidewinder

4\. Allison Reynolds  
California Mountain Snake

5\. RIKO   
Snake Charmer

  
_For those regarded as warriors when engaging in combat, the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior’s only concern. Suppress all human emotion and compassion. Kill whoever stands in thy way, even if that be God or the Buddha himself. This truth lies at the heart of the art of combat._

These were the words Neil allowed to fill his mind as he closed the cover of his notebook and started the engine of his truck towards the third person on his list. 

 


	3. The Blood-Spattered Groom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil wakes up from his coma.

FOUR YEARS SIX MONTHS AGO in EL PASO, TEXAS

Bullet casings riddled the floor in the church as the head Sheriff entered to piece together the carnage of his crime scene. Every footstep brought with it the echo of empty bullet casings as he walked closer to the bodies of the deceased.

This would go down as the most infamous and deadly shooting west of El Paso. Nine dead--including the groom, Reverend, Reverend’s wife, even the organ player--and one missing person. And that was only obvious from the marriage certificate. The missing person in question?The other groom.

The Sheriff could tell, immediately, that this was the work of one mighty pissed off professional. It was too clean. Hits were delivered to body parts that would have resulted in near instant death. That was, for everyone except the groom lying in the center of it all.

“Name on the marriage certificate is a Chris Machiavelli,” one of the officers told the Sheriff. “That’s a fake. We’ve all just been calling him the groom, on account of the tux.”

“You’d have to be one salty dog to shoot a good looking guy like that in the head,” the Sheriff decided as he leaned down to squat next to the body. “I mean, look at him. Fire colored hair. Big eyes.”

The body twitched, spit flying up and out of its mouth to hit the Sheriff right in the eye.

For a moment, the Sheriff was stunned. Then, he smiled a little.

“This cocksucker ain’t dead,” he said in astonishment. He amended the death tally he'd been keeping in his head. Eight dead, one missing, and one in critical condition.

* * *

 

Allison Reynolds had been told, any countless number of times, that her confidence would get her killed.

So far though, it had worked out just fine for her. So fine, in fact, that she found herself lucky enough to be the one standing over the comatose body of the man that was supposed to be immune to death. And to top it off, she was able to enjoy the luxury of taking fully conscious, completely aware breaths over him. She wouldn’t deny the feeling of smug importance that seeped into her stance and curled her lips. In fact, she would revel in it.

She smiled down at the one Neil Josten, hand steady on his IV tube as she prepared to inject him with poison.

Whistling was another one of her habits. One that Neil had promised to kill her for, back when they had been partners. She relished in it now, standing over him smugly as her lips whistled out a high pitched tune.

“I might never have liked you. In fact, I despise you. But that shouldn’t suggest, that I don’t respect you,” Allison said delicately, keeping her voice low. She brought a hand to wipe a stray piece of hair from Neil's forehead. "Dying in our sleep is a luxury our kind is rarely afforded.”

Allison stuck the needle of the injection into the tube connected to Neil’s wrist.

“My gift, to you.”

Her phone rang, loud and shrill against the gentle beeping of the medical machinery around her.

“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered as she pulled the needle back out to set down at the table.

She pulled the phone out of her pocket as roughly as she could manage, her finger smashing against the accept button of the incoming phone call.

“Hello, Riko.”

“What’s his condition?”

“Comatose.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m standing over his body right now.”

“Good girl,” Riko cooed into the phone. “Allison you are going to abort the mission.”

Allison’s voice, indignant and loud, rose from her chest up to her throat and through her mouth. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“We owe him better than this.”

“You don’t owe him shit,” she shouted.

“Will you keep your voice down?” Riko asked calmly.

“You don’t owe him shit,” she repeated, whispering each word with marked emphasis.

“May I say just one thing?”

Allison threw her hand up at her side. “Speak.”

“You all beat the hell out of that man, but you didn’t kill him. And I put a bullet in his brain, but he just kept on living. And you saw all of this with your own beautiful single eye didn't you?”

At Allison’s silence, Riko continued on.

“We’ve done a lot of things to that man. And, if he ever wakes up, we’ll do a lot more. But one thing we won’t do is sneak into his room in the night like a filthy rat and kill him in his sleep.”

Allison shook her head, moving over the window where rain was coming down harshly outside. She couldn’t even stand to look at Josten and his smug form behind her.

“And the reason we won’t do that thing is that that thing would lower us. Don’t you agree, Miss Reynolds?”

“I agree,” Allison said finally.

“I knew you would. Now, come home.”

“Affirmative,” she said with a deep sigh before saying goodbye and hanging up her phone.

She spent more one more minute staring out the window after tucking her phone back into her pocket before bringing herself back to the side of Neil’s hospital bed.

“I bet you think that was pretty fucking funny, huh?” Allison leaned in closer to Neil so she could whisper in his ear. “Some advice, Josten: Don’t you ever fucking wake up.”

* * *

  
Neil couldn't say that he had been prepared for any of the moments in his life that had truly surprised him, and waking oneself up from a coma after four years was no exception.

I was grief that gripped him, most fiercely, first. It rolled through him in waves. Neil reached his hands out in front of him, as though he might be able to materialize those he'd lost in front of him. Throwing up was the natural byproduct of Neil's inability to control his body as it shook and trembled. And when that was done, when he had wrecked himself through every shred of emotion he could possibly feel about what he'd lost, Neil felt the tension resolved. He felt determination, a thing he'd thought he'd lost five years ago, take the place of that hollowness in his chest.

It took Neil a quarter of an hour to recover enough from the shock to attempt to leave his bed, and another half an hour to crawl across the floor. So when he heard the whistling of a nurse come down the hall towards his room, Neil leaped on the opportunity presented to him.

The man, as he entered the room, let out a small wheeze in surprise at Neil's empty bed. He looked down, making eye contact with Neil just as he bit down on the back of the man's ankles. Teeth clenched into the skin until Neil pulled back, ripping the Achilles tendon out of the man and into his mouth.

The nurse, in shock, let out a sharp cry before falling to the ground in pain. Neil made quick work of dispatching the man, dragging his writhing form closer to the door to get the answers he needed. He positioned the man--Buck if his nametag was to be trusted--so that his head was in between the door frame and the thick edge of the metal hospital door.

"Where's Riko?" Neil demanded, slamming the door against the man's head.

Buck groaned unintelligibly, but Neil's patience was too thin to wait.

"Where the fuck is Riko?"

He asked--demanded really--again and again, growing more frustrated each time, until finally, he felt himself snap. He felt the rage in his veins—coursing down to his fingertips, pooling in the pulse point of his wrists. He brought all of his strength into one final blow, slamming the door until he heard the final crunch of metal crushing in the man's skull. He hadn't gotten any answers or gained any insight. All he knew was that he couldn't possibly be safe staying here. All of the questions--why Riko kept him alive, why he went after him and Andrew in the first place, how Neil woke up--would have to wait. The top priority was to escape.

It was an anti-climatic event. The small task of grabbing keys from Buck's pocket and finding a wheelchair to aid him took the better part of an hour. It was another twenty minutes until he made it down to the parking garage. But the moment he located the truck attached to the keys, Neil couldn't help but feel complete and utter relief.

As he laid in the back of Buck’s truck, trying to will his limbs out of entropy, Neil couldn’t help but visualize the faces of the people responsible for his current situation, members all of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.

When Fortune smiles down on something as ugly and violent as revenge, one can’t help but feel as though they are carrying out God’s will. At a time when Neil knew the least about his enemies, it was one Renee O-Ren Ishii who was the easiest to find. Though Neil would suppose, as he reflected on it later, that when one manages the difficult task of becoming Queen of the Tokyo Underworld, one did not much go through the trouble of hiding one's location. Did one?


	4. The Origin of O-Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renee's origin story.

Renee O-Ren Ishii was a half-Japanese, half-Chinese American-born army brat, who was first acquainted with death at the tender age of 9. 

It was a story she had told only three times in her life, and all to members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Andrew had been the first, and Neil the last, with Allison tucked securely between them. 

She witnessed her parents' death as they fell under the blade of Boss Matsumoto. She had been hiding under their bed through the ordeal. 

The funny thing about the incident was that while she remembered being terrified as her father fought off the henchmen, smashing their brains into the walls of their home, she hadn't considered a possibility that he could die, even as she watched it happen. At the time, she thought her father had a chance at survival. So when he fell to the ground, face inches away from her own, blood-soaked and shocked, she knew her mother wasn't far to follow. 

Nothing, not even witnessing a sword pierce through the skull of their father, prepares a child to lie underneath the bed their mother is killed on. As Renee rolled onto her back, desperate to move away from her father's corpse, Boss Matsumoto threw her mother onto the mattress above. Renee stared at the underside of the bed, listening carefully for any indication of what was to come. It happened faster than sound. Matsumoto's blade pierced through the bed and sunk into the floor next to Renee's head. 

There was a moment before the blood pooled and began to drop into Renee's eyes when the silence of the room caused Renee to believe it was over. It made her think everything would be ok. Maybe Boss Matsumoto didn't need to kill her mother. Perhaps he would leave them alone. 

As her mother's blood fell on her face, she felt the eyes well in her eyes and with each tear expended--with each bit of grief that left her body--her rage solidified. She stayed under the bed, even after Boss Matsumoto and his men left, even after they had sparked a fire in the house, unable and unwilling to witness her mother's dead body. Unable and unwilling to crawl out of the bed and move over her father's corpse. 

It wasn't until she was older that she saw her father for the helpless fool he was. There was no way for him to have won that night. His fate had already been sealed. It was in this realization she found her guiding principle: Power, above all else, proves victory. 

At eleven, she got the revenge she had sworn that day. Success was a rather simple matter of knowing the weakness of one's enemy and exploiting it to get what one wants. 

Luckily for her, Boss Matsumoto was a pedophile.

She used his own sword to spray his inside along the walls and spread them out across his mattress. Before she delivered the fatal blow, however, she forced him to look into her eyes and remember who she was. A moment following the recognition in his eyes, she yanked harshly on the blade, soaking herself in his blood. After that, killing the guards was easy. A bullet to the eye and three more in the chest before she waltzed out of Boss Matsumoto's cavern, his samurai sword in her hand. 

By twenty years old, she was one of the most prolific and skilled female assassins in the world. When they had first met, there was a rumor going around that she could put a bullet through a target thirty-five hundred meters away. She had assured Neil that it was actually more like thirty-two hundred meters. 

The story of her childhood had been one she’d told in the quiet mystique of a stakeout, six months after they had been introduced by Riko. Neil had not been shy in his position on Renee, whom he neither trusted nor admired. She had decided she liked that about him. 

“You sounds like you regret it,” Neil had said after she’d finished speaking. The anger he imagined her having at the witness of her parents' murder was long gone. She spoke of killing Matsumoto with a tired sigh. 

“Regret it?” She laughed lightly. “Of course not. It brought me pleasure, joy even.” 

When she turned to look at him, he realized—more than he’d ever seen from her when she was poised with a knife or tended behind a scope—how deadly she could actually be. 

"It seems like it set you off down this road. Maybe you could have had a normal life." Even as he said it, he knew it was untrue, but he was curious about how she might respond. 

“I thought about it. Having a normal life that is. I thought ‘maybe this bloodshed doesn’t need to define me’ or ‘maybe I’m a good person, even if I’ve killed.’ But everywhere I looked, I knew that that was wrong. I could try, I could spend my whole life trying to be a good person, despite what I’ve done, despite what I can do. But why? I will live my life unable to take back the lives I've taken. And I wouldn't want to." 

"Everyone has a revenge story," Neil said. 

"Not everyone," Renee said. "Just everyone like us. It’s how he picked us.” 

Neil didn't bother to ask who she was referring to. “And you’re ok with that?” 

“I've never had a purpose. And I've never had a home. But I am good at what I do, and I enjoy it." She had looked at him, and under the moonlight her bleached hair was silver. "That's more than most people get. And if it comes at the cost of taking lives...Well, at least I know what I am making myself vulnerable to." 

At twenty-five, Renee did her part in the killing of nine innocent people in a small wedding chapel in El Paso, Texas. But on that day, four years ago, she made one mistake. 

She should have killed ten.


	5. The MAN from OKINAWA

OKINAWA PREFECTURE, Japan

Neil walked into the small sushi shop with a smile on his face and a bright tourist shirt over his chest. He’d spent his childhood playing characters, transforming his walk and accent and emotions to fit other’s perceptions of him. He let out a small “hello?” the end of the word turning up at the end in shyness and questioning.

The man sitting behind the bar was bent down one a newspaper, lounging lazily in his empty store. Without looking up, he spoke a rapid string of Japanese and beckoned for Neil to sit wherever he pleased.

When Neil made no move, the man looked up, and seeing the face of a foreigner in his shop, threw the paper to the side and opted for English.

“Welcome. You English?” He didn’t seem happy necessarily to see Neil, though he did seem curious, more alert.

“American, actually,” Neil clarified.

“American?” The man repeated with a small smile. “My homeland. You get an extra welcome just for that.”

“Domo,” Neil said with a wide smile as he walked forward. Neil looked around at the empty shop. “May I sit at the bar?”

“Go right ahead.”

Neil rested his small backpack on the chair next to him, placing his rolled up map on top of the counter.

“You said domo when you came in,” the man said, his eyebrows creased slightly as Neil sat. “Do you speak Japanese?”

“Oh, no. Nothing besides a few words I picked up.”

The man smiled. “So, what have you learned?”

“Hmm, let’s see.” Neil tapped a finger against his chin. “Arigato.”

“Arigato,” the man repeated. “Good. What else?”

“Oh…I already said domo right?”

He nodded before pulling a knife from the wall and began slicing up pieces of fresh tuna for the nigiri.

“That’s about the extent of what I’ve learned to be honest,” Neil said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Your pronunciation is very good, you know. You should consider learning it.”

Neil let out a small laugh. “I heard it was kind of difficult.”

“No,” the man said, returning his smile. “Very easy.”

He poured a small cup of tea and set it on the bar before finishing up the sushi. He laid the first two pieces out for Neil before grabbing salmon to begin slicing for the next pair of nigiri.

“So, where in America are you visiting from?”

“Millport, Arizona.”

“Haven’t heard of it.”

“No one has,” Neil said with a laugh. He brought his teacup up to his mouth, watching the man over the rim. It was the simple maneuvering of a few different questions for Neil to bring the conversation where he wanted it.

“When did you move to Japan?”

“About thirty years ago.” He switched one knife for a smaller, slightly sharper one.

“Any particular reason?” Neil asked as he plopped a nigiri in his mouth.

“A woman.”

“Did you find her?” Neil asked, his voice a little softer and delicate to further manipulate the mood. “The woman?”

The man looked up, directly into Neil’s eyes and for a moment Neil was sure he had been made. He held the gaze, keeping his features in the perfect picture of sympathy, and the man looked away.

“First time in Japan?” he asked, diverting Neil’s question.

“Mhm.”

“And what brings you to Okinawa?”

There was no hesitation. “I’m looking for a man.”

“Ah.” The man continued to fix more sushi from behind the counter. “Old friend, that lives in the city?”

“No.”

“No, he’s not a friend?” He asked, looking up tentatively at Neil. His eyebrow raised, examine something in Neil’s features.

“We’ve never met before.”

The man kept his gaze.

“Do you know his name?”

“David Wymack. But he used to go by Hattori Hanzo.”

The knife slipped from Wymack’s grip, teetering over the edge of the counter and onto the floor. Neil counted twenty-seven seconds of silence before Wymack spoke. When he opened his mouth, it was a string of quick Japanese that came out of his mouth.

“And what would you need with him?”

“I need Japanese steel,” Neil said, slipping easily back into the language he hadn’t used in over five years.

A deep breath moved through Wymack’s chest, stuttering as he exhaled it.

“You must have big vermin.”

“Huge.”

Wymack looked Neil up and down before wiping his hands on the nearest towel.

“Follow me.”

Neil walked behind the counter, feeling strangely hollow to be in a place he had spent so many years dreaming of seeing. He’d never held a Hanzo sword before, despite Riko’s penchant for them. They were the best blades in the world, Neil could claim that without exaggeration, and there was legend surrounding the fictitious character of Hanzo that had carried the brand.

In fact, there was no Hattori Hanzo. He was created by the two greatest wordsmiths of the modern era, steeped in ancient Japanese legend and modern lore. Wymack had learned from these two masters of the craft—Tetsuji Moriyama and Kaleigh Day—and he was the only one still living who could make a Hanzo blade.

Neil may have never held one, but he’d seen it used by Riko often enough that he knew precisely what carnage they were capable of.

Wymack pulled a small foot latter from where it sat against the wall of the back room, setting it below the door in the ceiling for the attic. When he pulled down the door, stairs folded out underneath it. Wymack beckoned Neil to go up first.

It was clear that space was used mostly for storage. A few crates were strewn off to the side, a mattress off in the far corner of the room. And dust seemed to permeate every single thing in the place, including the air. But none of that mattered. Not at all. Because all along the leftmost wall were about a dozen samurai swords, each crafted by one Hattori Hanzo.

Neil felt the reverence swell in his chest; his feet moved forward without his control until he was standing directly in front of the swords. He reached out for one of the blades, a beautifully lacquered black and red piece, stopping only centimeters away.

“May I?”

Wymack nodded his approval. “Try the second one down.”

Neil allowed his fingers to curl around the bright orange lacquered wood of the samurai sword’s scabbard, moving delicately until he could hold the sword comfortably enough to unsheathe it.

The edge of the blade glittered as it caught the light coming in through the dusty windows and Neil felt it—joy, fleeting and faint—at what he was experiencing.

“You like Samurai Swords,” Wymack said thoughtfully, holding a small ball in his hands. “And I like Exy.”

He threw the Exy ball at Neil with clear intent, and Neil didn’t have to think twice before bringing the blade down. The ball fell in two perfect pieces onto the ground, sliced all the way down the middle with a smooth fine line.

Neil let out a small laugh of astonishment as Wymack came closer and uncurled his fingers from the blade.

“I did want to show you these. But someone like you, who knows so much, must know that I no longer make instruments of death. What I have here is for sentimental value only. You’ve come looking for something which I cannot make for you anymore.”

Neil didn’t hesitate. “So give me one of these.”

“These are not for sale.”

“I didn’t say sell me. I said give me.”

“Why would I help you?” Wymack said, laughing softly at Neil’s cockiness.

“Because.” All softness left Neil’s voice. His words were slow and careful, just barely containing the rage he felt. “My vermin is a former student of yours, and considering the student I would say you have a rather _large_ obligation.”

Recognition washed over Wymack’s face, but he didn’t speak again until he started to descend down the stairs.

“It will take me one month to make your sword. I suggest you spend it training,” Wymack said before the top of his head disappeared. Neil threw one small glance back at the swords before taking a deep breath, eyes falling closed. He could hear it, the words Andrew would be saying to him if he were here.

Andrew had met Wymack. Had known him quite intimately over the years. But they’d never come here together. Andrew respected Wymack too much to bring him back into a world he’d made a blood oath to leave behind. And now, Wymack was going back on his word. He felt the tension Andrew would have voiced intimately, and hated that what should have been a moment of victory was tainted by all the weights of memories best forgotten.

ONE MONTH LATER

When Wymack opened the sword to show it to Neil—one final inspection as it was uncased—Neil recognized the emblazoned fox just above the hilt. It stared back at him knowingly. They sat on the floor across from each other, both donned in white that neither deserved to be wearing, and Wymack began to speak.

“I have created an instrument of death, which I swore a blood oath 28 years ago I would never do again. I have created _something that kills people_. I’ve done this because philosophically I am sympathetic to your aim.” Wymack spoke exclusively in Japanese, turning the sword this way and that to examine the edged weapon from various sides. “I can tell you with no ego that this is my finest sword. Should you encounter God, this sword would strike him down.” Wymack let in a deep breath, as he resheathed the blade. His chest fell as he balanced it over his lap and his eyes fell closed before breathing in deeply again. Wymack moved gingerly, passing the re-encased sword across the table and into Neil’s awaiting hands. “Red-haired warrior.” His eyes filled with the full spectrum of conflicting emotions. “Go.”

Neil's voice was soft, but as he broke through the silence of the room, he knew it threatened the delicate nature of the moment. 

“Domo.” 


	6. Queen of the Crime Council

It was one year after the massacre at the Twin Pines Wedding Chapel in El Paso, Texas, that Riko backed—both financially and philosophically—Renee O-Ren Ishii in her defeat of the other Yakuza clans over who would rule vice in the principal underworld of Tokyo City. When the final sword was sheathed, and the last bloody victory had been declared, it was Renee O-Ren Ishii and her powerful posse—the Crazy 88—who ruled victorious.

As tradition dictated, the other boss members attended the dinner following her official installation--a tradition that was essential to the council of bosses. For the most part, it was a wildly uneventful evening. Renee, privileged but proud in her victory, was perfectly behaved. She knew the delicate balance of manipulating men, and she knew the worth of subtly in her every action. Surely, she would not have risen to the top had she not had the wherewithal to understand the exact calculations she needed to make. And her reputation was that was both blood-soaked and spotless. Unassuming and yet deadly. It had taken years of careful spinning to craft such an intricate reputation for herself. And it had proven as essential as her lethality in securing the victory.

Renee’s closest confidants—Jean, Dan, and Matt—represented the peculiar intersections of her identity and were thus as equally important to her as the reputation she crafted. Jean Moreau, the half-Japanese, half-French former Riko protege, was Renee’s closest friend and lawyer. He handled all of her affairs as she rose to the top. Dan Wilds was Renee’s American found personal bodyguard. The two had become close following a run-in over a potential hit in which they were both intending to come out victorious. Renee won the hit, beating Dan to the deed by a matter of minutes, but true to her merciful reputation, Renee brought Dan back to Japan with her with a promise of a much larger fortune. And Matthew Boyd, whom Dan had been seeing for a little under a year at the time, tagged along as the leader of Renee’s personal army: the Crazy 88. His hand to hand combat skills were unparalleled, and he saw no reason not to put them to immediate use at the right hand of one Renee O-Ren Ishii.

If anyone had cause to wonder exactly how a small, American born, Chinese-Japanese woman became the boss of all bosses in Tokyo, Japan, the subject of Renee’s heritage came up only once. It so happened to be on the night of her inauguration. The person in question was one Boss Tanaka.

As Renee sat perched at the head of the long black dining table—Jean to her left, Dan and Matt to her right, the other Bosses spread out along each side of the table—laughing amicably at a pathetic joke Boss Benta made, Boss Tanaka sat sulking at the end of the table, several seats away from everyone else. While he seemed determined to break the mood for most of the evening, it was a sudden outburst from him forty minutes into the evening that instigated the entire ordeal.

Renee saw the quick motion of his fist before she heard the shattering of his porcelain cup. As the rest of the council whipped towards him, she raised one eyebrow slowly.

“Tanaka,” Boss Honda yelled. “What is the meaning of this?”

For a moment, Tanaka did not answer. He wiped his bleeding hand on his napkin and shoveled the remains of his teacup into a small pile in front of him. When he did look up, he looked directly at Boss Honda.

“How can you sit for the perversion of this council?” He demanded.

“Tanaka-san,” Renee asked sweetly. “To what perversions do you speak?”

“I speak of the perversion of this council, which I love more than my own children, by making a Chinese Jap-American half-breed bitch its leader.”

Before he was able to take a breath to finish his sentence, Renee was up, feet moving swiftly towards his end of the council. AS he finished his sentence, her sword connected with his neck, disconnecting it clean off his body. She held her position, sword still raised and body still crouched even as the blood rained down her face. She allowed the other bosses at the table thirty seconds to regain control of the shit they had just lost at such an unexpected execution before standing slowly and turning towards them.

“So that you understand how deadly serious I am, I’m going to say this next part in English.” Renee stood, wiping the blood of her katana before sheathing it. She stroked the lacquer of the scabbard, fingertips rubbing over the small pink flowers she had engraved in the handle of her sword, before speaking quietly and slowly.

“As your leader, I encourage you from time to time to question my logic. If you are unconvinced a particular plan of action is the wisest, then say so. And I will promise you right here and now that no subject will ever be taboo—except, of course, the subject that was just under discussion. The price you pay for bringing up my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is: I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here.” She dropped Tanaka’s head onto the table, where it bounced and fell into Boss Honda’s lap, before speaking her final warning. She said, crystal clear and progressively louder, “now if any of you sons-of-bitches have anything else to say, now is the fucking time.” Renee’s eyes moved from each member of the council, holding it for a solid three seconds before moving onto the next before fixing a smile on her face. “I didn’t think so,” she said softly.

No one bothered to fuck with Renee after that particular move. And since that night, her power in Tokyo had only grown stronger.


	7. The House of the Blue Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Neil takes on Renee.

As Neil sped to the House of Blue Leaves on his bright orange sportbike, wearing a matching orange racing suit, he could taste a sincere desire for blood that he had not felt in many, many years. It awakened every part of the Wesninski name he had tried so hard to abandon. And the worst part, as he imagined the faces of the people he was about to kill, was that he liked feeling the Wesninski drive for slaughter cloud his mind.

The plan was to arrive well ahead of Renee and her posse. So, when they walked through the door, Neil was already at the bar in the corner of the establishment. Perhaps a man in a bright orange outfit would be easy to pick out in a crowd, but with the club packed and the members of Renee’s posse focused ahead on their mistress, no one bothered to look twice at him.

The staff of the establishment ran around frantically, pursuing every whim of Renee and the crazy 88. She was locked in the topmost private room, up the stairs with a balcony facing towards the dance floor. The House of Blue Leaves was a popular destination for the bosses of the Tokyo underworld. Neil, Renee, and Andrew had sat at the very same bar six years ago before taking care of their hit out in the parking lot.

Neil hadn’t quite figured out how he was going to approach Renee. Ideally, he’d need to clear out the club, though he certainly didn’t mind whatever casualties were necessary for his victory. It would also necessitate enough of a threat that she met him outside of the room. She was too prideful to flee, so he knew any challenge she would meet head-on. After all, he was only one person, and her inner posse consisted of eight excluding Renee.

The opportunity arrived, oddly enough, in the men's bathroom on the first floor. Neil had been changing out of the thick leather of his jacket into the more flexible fabric of the matching sport jacket when he heard the distinct ring of a cell phone, and a quick string of French. Carefully, Neil peered through the sliver of space where the edge of the stall met the stall door, and spot Jean in front of the sink, phone pressed to his ear. There was a faint smile playing at this lips as words flew quickly out of his mouth.

Neil's vision glossed over in red, remembering furiously the role that Jean had played in Andrew's death. The same ringtone, the same flippant answer, followed by the same sly laughter had acted as the backdrop to the assassination of Andrew and the half dozen others in the wedding chapel.

The moment Jean ended the call, Neil was out and pressing his blade against the back of Jean's neck. There was a moment of surprise, a sharp intake of breath before Neil was ordering Jean out of the bathroom.

“Renee O-Ren Ishii,” Neil called out in the middle of the dance floor, the blade still pressed against the back of Jean. “We have unfinished business!”

The entire crowd stilled, live band stopping at the sound of Renee’s name. It seemed as though the whole room turned towards the balcony, waiting for Renee and her followers to emerge. And when she did, her eyes widened only slightly in surprise as she recognized Neil standing before her.

Before she could react, or otherwise call out to him in any manner, Neil brought the edge of his blade sharply down through Jean’s shoulder, blood spewing all across the front of his jacket and trailing on the floor. Jean dropped to his knees, crying out and flailing uselessly along the ground, slipping in his own blood.

Renee let out a soft intake of breath in surprise.

The silence was punctuated only by the sounds of footsteps and panicked cries as civilians ran towards the entrance, but Renee and Neil stayed locked in a contest of eyes.

When only they remained, Renee let out the smallest exhale of breath, a name cloaked in the whisper: Nathaniel.

One of the men at Renee's side vaulted over the balcony so he could face Neil below, sword raised and tensed to strike.

Neil barely put any effort in before cutting the blade off just above the hilt and in the surprise of his sword being rendered useless, the man stilled. Neil stuck his Hanzo blade squarely into the man’s chest, pulling up sharply, so his innards fell at Neil’s feet before looking up at Renee again.

“Tear him the fuck apart,” Renee yelled finally, sending all but Dan after her.

It was surprisingly quick work. Their movements were sloppy, apparently used to brute displays of force than the finesse of a sword fight, and as Neil pinned the final member to the wood beam by the bar, sword locking her in place, he felt a vicious grin cut across his face.

“Any other subordinates for me to kill?” Neil asked.

“Oh, hi,” Dan chirped, emerging from the room with a meteor hammer-- a powerful weapon in the form of a ball and chain--in her hands.

“Dan, right?” Neil asked as he made his way closer.

Dan started to make her way down the stairs. “Bingo. And you go by many names. Nathaniel Wesninski. Neil Josten. Black Mamba.”

“Our reputations proceed us,” Neil said grimly, eyes flicking back to Renee who watched on in amusement. “I know you feel you need to protect Renee. But I beg you; please reconsider. My business is not with you. Your death would be senseless.”

Dan let out a skittering laugh as she continued down the stairs.

“You call that begging? You’re going to have to do better than that,” she said firmly as she dropped the ball onto the ground.

Neil raised an eyebrow, assessing her one final time before readying his stance. He pulled his sword up in front of him defensively. He would be lying if he had said he had ever encountered her weapon first hand, and from the ease with which she carried it, Neil could sense she was more than proficient.

It started like this--Dan taking a confident step forward while Neil took a shaky step back. She swung the ball high above her head, a practiced movement that was as easy to her as the bright smile that had spread across her face.

Neil's attention was split between the ball swinging through the air, the disconnected sound of air rushing by a moment after it swung around her face, and the deep look of intensity in her eyes. He decided on keeping his eyes trained carefully on the ball, but in the moment before he switched his focus, he saw Dan's smile and knew what was to come.

She swung out, the ball inches from his face, and he chopped futilely at the air with his sword, anything to keep it a safe distance away. He managed to block it when she swung out towards his face again, sending it careening into the wooden beam right next to his head. The wood split and splintered with the impact and Neil felt his eyes go wide.

Dan spun to the defensive, turning to retreat and gain more ground and distance, and Neil knew it was his one opportunity to stop her in her tracks. He sliced his sword through the air, hoping to catch on skin, hoping to still her, when at the last second she sent her weapon careening back into his chest.

The effect was instant. He felt his chest crackle under the pressure, blood spewing hot into his mouth as his ribs shook with the pressure to take a breath. The sheer force knocked him on his back, and when she struck the ball down by his head, he was just barely able to roll away.

As he stood, he sliced at the chain once more, but Dan was prepared for him, she tightened her grip and yanked the sword right out of his hands, flying across the room. Now he was weaponless, and once again the ball came flying towards him.

In a moment of desperation, Neil grabbed at one of the small tables that had littered the dance floor. There were some used glasses and a few stray napkins from the patrons who had been there, and they shattered to the floor as Neil pulled the table in front of him defensively. The ball burst through the center, cutting the table in half as Neil anticipated, and he held tight to two of the legs that had been broken free. Better to have some weapon than none at all.

Dan smiled, and her movements grew quicker as she started to incorporate her feet to maneuver and aim her weapon more effectively. Neil barely had time to block one attack before another was coming for him, but in one well-placed shot, he managed to use the wooden leg as a sort of makeshift bat, and send the ball careening back towards Dan. She moved quickly out of the wall, but the ball bounced off of the wall behind her, hitting her square in the back of the head and knocking her on her back.

Neil jumped at the opportunity, bringing the table legs down in an attempt to crush her skull or knock her unconscious, but once again she knocked the weapon away before bouncing back to her feet.

Dan, with frustration showing on her face for the first time, clicked a button in the handle of her chain, and Neil felt his breath catch as he watched the edge ball disconnect to show a wheel of serrated blades. He felt it catch against his shoulder, ripping open the skin before he realized she had even thrown it again. And as he stared down at the open wound, blood pouring out lazily, he knew he had made a crucial mistake. He looked back at Dan to find the ball inches away from his face, the blades calling out menacingly as they careened through the air. Without hesitation, or consideration of a more effective strategy, Neil ducked and felt the chain come around his throat as the ball sunk into the beam behind him to keep him in place.

Dan pulled tighter, pulling the chain around her elbow to increase the pressure. She took another giant step forward as Neil dropped to his knees, tugging on the chain once more to hold the chain for the last few seconds of Neil’s life. As he fell, he spotted the leg from one of the tables they had broken, four nails lodged through the wood and coming out the other side. Neil slammed his foot against the debris so the leg could pop squarely up into his hand.

He slammed it first into Dan’s foot, blood soaking her otherwise spotless tennis shoes. And, in the moment of surprise, as she cried out and her grip loosened on the chain, Neil brought the leg swinging towards her head, where the nails pierced her skull.

The chain fell from her hands, blood oozing out of her mouth and eyes until she collapsed at Neil’s feet.

He took a moment to breathe, to stand up, to assess Dan’s dead body, before returning to the center of the dance floor directly below Renee.

She was shocked, that much was evident on the careful way her eyes crinkled and her lips jutted out. But as the sound of approaching motorbikes filled the emptiness of club, Neil felt his eyes slide close in fatigue and disbelief. When he opened them, Renee was smiling back. The rest of her squad had finally arrived.

“You didn’t think it was going to be that easy did you?” Renee asked.

“You know, for a second there, I really did.”

"Silly rabbit..." Renee said, echoing words Andrew had spoken over a decade ago.

"Trix are for kids," Neil finished in a whisper.

The only lucky thing, Neil supposed, was that there weren’t actually eighty-eighty members to the crazy eighty-eighty squad. As they surrounded him, he took a moment to assess the thirty or so men he was up against.

The truth about a sword fight, which no one wants to admit, is that it was always about the surprise. It was the reason Neil had always been so victorious despite his limited skill. And the thing about a sword fight of this magnitude, with this many opponents, is that the objective was not always to kill, but to maim significantly enough that they were out for the count. Killing, all things considered, was a nice bonus.

For the first few minutes, it was the adrenaline that kept him going. That, and the refusal to go down from a nameless member of a squad barely proficient enough with a blade to not be mindless followers. And as Neil swung out and felt his sword lodge into human flesh, he remembered dozens of fights, just like this one. Fights with Riko by his side. Or with Andrew watching faithfully from the distance as he sniped from the rooftops.

It was constant movement, not staying in one place long enough for any hits to be able to land, and using the full radius of your body. He slid his sword into bodies behind and all around him, cutting through chests and hacking off limbs, and running from one part of the room to the next in a mindless whirl.

And then, panic entered. Because as many of them as he had managed to disarm and maim, there were still so many left--a good seventeen or so. And they were tensed and ready for his next move. He held tight to the body at the end of his sword, spinning so that it bought him some room, and more importantly, some time.

The tactic changed, from stabbing and cutting out into the air, to quick, sharp bursts of swordplay. Those remaining were not unskilled, which came with its own set of challenges. He took on three or four at once, stopping every so often when he cut a limb or foot or hand or head off a body. And then, suddenly it seemed there were only three, and Neil, with all the confidence of someone who knew they would reign superior, cut them down in a matter of moments.

He didn't hesitate to address the carnage that lay on the dancefloor.

“Those of you lucky enough to have your lives, take them with you. But leave your limbs; those are mine now.” As the various wounded scrambled for their footing to exit the House of Blues Leaves, Neil added one additional caveat. “Except you, Jean! You stay right where you are.”

He took a few steadying breaths, surveying the damage he has inflicted, allowing it to ground himself. And he forced himself to remember why it was he was here. He forced images of Andrew into his mind--made himself remember the small twitches of smiles and the cool brush of fingertips over skin, the silent promises they were too afraid to speak aloud.

When he moved to follow Renee he allowed the pain to pump through him, to fuel him as he moved through her rooms and out through the door connected to the back of the establishment. She was standing rail straight a few yards away, the freshly fallen snow coating about an inch of the ground.

“Your blade is quite impressive,” Renee said as Neil walked out into the garden. She was faced away form him.

"I would hope so. It's what Hanzo is known for."

Renee spun quickly as though he had insulted her.

"You lie."

Neil flashed the small fox embossed on the blade, and she narrowed her eyes.

"Blades don't tire. But people most certainly do. I hope you've saved your energy."

Neil said nothing else. He knew better than to underestimate Renee, and he also knew she was right. He didn't have much more than ten minutes left in him.

They had trained before--a byproduct of being protegees of Riko with interest in edged weapons. Their fighting styles were different, there was no denying it, and while Renee had been classically trained and was by far the master sword carrier, Neil had always been able to keep up through sheer desperation alone. She was, if Neil was honest with himself, the single person besides Riko that he was most apprehensive about facing. It's why he had decided to kill her first.

With a small smile on her face, she took great care to ensure she bowed as customary. Renee hadn't made it this far on the traditions of swordsmanship only to abandon them now, and she was nothing if not a disciplined and faithful disciple. As she rose, she took great care to unsheath her sword, a fine blade with small pink flowers etched into the casing. Carefully, delicately, she lowered her blade and its case to her sides, in a clear defensive gesture.

Neil, already tensed and ready to strike first, had no problem obliging.

Their swords connected three times before Renee was pushing him away, and Neil was surprised to find her strength had increased over the years. Though, why he kept underestimating her, he wasn't sure.

And now, with Neil off balance, Renee surged forward, using both of the weapons in her hands to overwhelm Neil's senses. He focused his energy on blocking, on hitting anything that came near him with all of his strength as opposed to with the delicate finesse he was supposed to be demonstrating. He could hear the admonishments Riko would be spewing if he saw such sloppy work.

Renee struck out with the casing of her sword, and Neil in one smooth motion, cut right through it, pausing Renee in her tracks. She took a moment to examine the clean cut of the lacquered sheath before smirking and discarding it. And now, deciding him a worthy enough opponent, Renee took her sword in both hands and raised it for Neil to meet.

There was nothing but the sound of their blades hitting, an equal match of strength and the low singing notes of metal on metal. And Neil, forever in his hastiness, pushed Renee away first.

They were surprisingly well matched when it came to fighting this close, and it seemed that every swing of Renee's sword was matched with a block from Neil. All but one. He saw it coming for him and moved quickly aside, spinning slightly to get out of range, and in the next moment pain ignited his vision white.

He overcalculated his jump, and Renee's blade comes in a clean swipe down his back. The shocking sting of it sent him flying backward, and not even the frozen snow did anything to quell the stinging. For a moment, it took everything he had just to let a breath in. Renee stood over him, blade lowered.

“Silly Caucasian boy likes to play with Samurai swords," She taunted with a small shake of her head. "You may not be able to fight like a samurai, but at least you can die like one."

Neil grit his teeth as Renee leaned nearer. His hand gripped tight around his blade, and he swung it in the air back and forth once she was close enough. The blade clawed out at the air, cutting deep into her robes. Neil watched as her white robes stained red along her abdomen. It had not been deep enough to kill outright, but it was enough to slow her significantly. It brought her to a stop, and she dropped her voice into a whisper of what it had been.

“For ridiculing you earlier, I apologize,” Renee murmured in Japanese.   
They used a few moments, blades lowered, to steady their heavy, labored breathing.

"I accept."

"And for the part I played in what happened, I do not pretend not to know the consequences of my actions."

To this, Neil had nothing to say. He breathed as deeply as he dared five times before he spoke his final word.

“Ready?” Neil asked.

“Ready,” Renee confirmed, straightening herself up.

They had lost all of their energy from earlier in the fight, running on fumes of desperation towards one another until their swords met ten paces ahead. Neil felt what was left of her strength as he pushed against her sword, and knew there wasn't much left in him either.

There were three more times that their blades met before Neil, in one final act of desperation, broke free. His sword moved swiftly over her head, separating her skull cap until it went flying a few feet away.

She died with a faint smile on her lips, and the words she would have said echoed in his brain. That really was a Hattori Hanzo blade.

There had been a time when Neil would've trusted Renee with his life. More than that, he would have trusted her with Andrew’s life. But that time had passed. As he walked away from her corpse, prepared to pack Jean into the back of his trunk, he couldn't stop their last conversation from playing in his mind.

_"I get the feeling you are going to run," she had whispered to him over a glass of whiskey._

_"What would give you that idea?"_

_"We're the same. You, me, Andrew."_

_Neil opened his mouth, but she continued speaking._

_"No, I don't mean we are all apart of the Dead Viper Assassination Squad. The others are different from us. We are runaways. We always have been. I know where my home is. You and Andrew though..." She had taken a long sip of her drink. Then she had shrugged. "Then again maybe it's just you who has it."_

_"Has what?"_

_"Hope."_

 


	8. The Lonely Shepherd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Neil reflects and Riko learns what's to come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter to build the next arc of the story! Enjoy :) 
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos and reads as always!

Grief was something Neil had neither the patience nor the mental state to deal with, least of all as he sat on the return flight from Tokyo. He was headed to California, his Hattori Hanzo and his victory both at his side. The information he had gathered from Jean was invaluable in speeding up the process of his roaring rampage of revenge, and it inspired in him, the urge to exact retribution. 

He pulled out a notebook he had picked up from the giftshop at the airport, and two pens he had selected after careful deliberation—one red and one black. He turned to a crisp, blank sheet, smoothing his palm across the page, eyes closing momentarily as he allowed himself one last moment to bask in the satisfaction of his victory against Renee. 

At the top of the page, he wrote, in large capital letters: DEATH LIST FIVE. With each person’s name he added from the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad he bottled the emotions of betrayal and nostalgia, saving them as fuel he knew he would need. He would be victorious in this quest to kill Riko, of this he was certain, but there was no telling how difficult the road ahead would be. As he crossed the first name off the list, he remembered the words Wymack had told him when he had handed him his sword. He looked out the window, at the endless span of sky, as he let the words float back in his mind. If he concentrated hard enough, he could hear Wymack’s voice saying them all over again. 

_Revenge is never a straight line._

_It is a forest._

_And like a forest, it is easy to lose your way, to get lost, to forget where you came in._

If his work had taught him anything its that he did not know what kind of toll such a mission would take on him—the ways it might change and cripple him. If he kept his mind focused singularly on his target, he would be victorious. And he truly did not care about the changes along the way. He would deal with those as he stood over the carnage. He would deal with those once he was free.

* * *

 

Jean sat in a hospital chair, Riko behind him, with IV tubes in his only arm thanks to one Neil Josten. He’d given Riko the story twice now, and Riko seemed no less angered by hearing it broken down again. 

“He wanted information,” Jean repeated. “On all the deadly vipers. What they’ve been doing, where they have been.” 

“And you gave him this information?” 

“Please,” Jean said softly as Riko ran fingers through Jean’s hair. “Forgive me. I’d never wish to betray you.” 

“No more of that.” Riko’s voice was even, soothing in its levelness. It would be a thing of his youth, to misplace his anger onto Jean, but Jean could feel the tension of it boiling underneath the surface. 

“If you had to guess,” Riko started slowly, his words mirroring the delicate movements of his hands. “Why he kept you alive, what would you guess?” 

“Guessing won’t be necessary,” Jean said. His voice was still shaking. “He kept me alive so I could tell you everything that happened. He told me he wanted you to know all of this. He wanted you to know that he knows that you know. He even wanted you to know that he wanted you to know.” 

To that, Riko had nothing prepared. A tiny breath escaped his lips, and from lilt of it Jean recognized it as the beginnings of a laugh. 

“One more thing, Jean.” Riko’s hand stopped moving, falling to stillness on Jean’s shoulder instead. 

“Yes?” 

“Is he aware that Andrew is still alive?” 


	9. The Incident At The Two Pines Wedding Chapel

The incident at the two pines wedding chapel in El Paso, Texas became a story of local legend. The massacre, the incident, the killing spree, the shoot out. All different names for the same event. All different names for the same wedding that ended in tragedy. But how it was told changed considerably. 

How it happened, who was there, who got killed and who killed them, changes depending on who is telling the story. It goes without saying perhaps, that no one really got it right. 

In actuality, it wasn’t a wedding at all. It was a wedding rehearsal. 

As Neil stared out the window of his airplane back from Tokyo, he allowed himself to remember the moments right before for the first time since he’d woken up from his coma. 

It started, not with a mental image, but with a sound. The sound of a flute, played so delicately it might have been mistaken for the wind.

FOUR YEARS AGO

“How did you find me?” Neil asked, a small smile on his lips. 

Riko was in a suit. He cleaned up rather nicely, and though Neil didn’t say that he could tell that Riko knew. 

“Are you going to be nice?” 

“I’ve never been nice in my whole life. But I’ll do my best to be sweet.” 

“What are you doing here, Riko?” Neil would have been lying if he would have said he hadn’t been dreading that moment, the moment when Riko arrived and found him, but something about seeing him in the dry Texas heat, without a gun or a sword at his side, caused Neil to smile. 

“That is a question I suppose I should be asking you.” Riko glanced towards the open doors of the chapel. The sounds of a small child rang through the quiet murmuring of the adults. “You have a daughter now, huh?” 

“That’s right,” Neil nodded.

“And does she have a name?” 

“She does.” 

“And I suppose it’s Minyard who is in there with you? Or is it all coincidence that my number two and three left me at the same time?” 

Neil was amazed how quickly they could fall back into their old banter. 

“You never did believe much in coincidences, did you?” 

“No,” Riko said softly, a slow smile on his lips. “I never much did.” 

Neil examined something in Riko’s face, trying to understand how he was so calm. 

“I’m surprised you’ve settled down. Never expected that of you,” Riko said honestly.

“A child changes things.” 

“I suppose you’re right.” 

“Are you going to come in? We are just about to run through the ceremony once more.” 

“Thought it was bad luck, for you two to see each other in your tuxes before the big day.” 

Neil smiled lopsidedly. “Don’t tell me you’ve started believing in luck.” 

“I think I’ll watch from the doorway. Don’t want to disrupt.” 

Neil frowned slightly. “You wouldn’t be.” 

“Go on, kid,” Riko said with a throw of his head. Andrew was staring at the two of them with a curious expression on his face, his shoulders tensed slightly. “He’s waiting for you.” 

Neil smiled once more before rushing forward to meet Andrew, whispering reassurances in his ears as Riko watched on from the back of the chapel. 

As the pastor went through the process once more, Neil felt him tense and then call out.

And then it was the sound of bullets that filled the air instead of wedding bells.


	10. The Lonely Grave of Paula Schultz

“She cut her way through eighty-eighty body guards before she got to Renee?” Aaron asked to clarify. 

“Well, there aren’t really eighty-eighty of them. They just call themselves the crazy eighty-eighty. Guess they thought it would sound cool,” Riko said slowly. 

Aaron lifted an eyebrow but otherwise remained unfazed. 

“Anyway they all fell under her Hanzo sword.” 

“Didn’t Wymack swear a blood oath to never make another sword again?” 

Riko nodded, turning his head to look off into the distance for a moment. 

“It would appear he has broken it.” 

At this, Aaron laughed, slow and steady as he finished his glass of whisky. 

“You really bring out the best in people, don’t you?” 

“I know this is a ridiculous question, but you haven't kept up with your swordplay have you?” 

“No,” Aaron said with pursued lips. He thought for a moment before taking a sip. “I hocked that sword you gave me years ago.” 

At this Riko looked devastated. “You pawned a Hanzo sword?” He asked slowly, just to be certain. “That was _priceless_.” 

“Apparently not.” 

Riko let out a slow breath and placed a hand against the doorframe to Aaron’s trailer. 

“I know it’s been some time since we’ve last spoken, and the last time wasn’t particularly pleasant. But you have got to get over being mad at me and start becoming afraid of Neil, because he is coming, and he is coming to kill you.” Riko looked meaningful at Aaron, who still seemed unfazed. “I know my assistance is likely the last thing you’d want, but unless you accept it, I have no doubt he will succeed.” 

Aaron shook his head, slow and deliberate as he considered Riko’s warning. 

“I don’t dodge guilt and I don’t try to neglect my comeuppance.” At Riko’s long sigh, Aaron continued. “That man deserves his revenge. And, we deserve to die.”

Aaron laughed abruptly. “But then again, so does he. So…I guess we’ll see where the chips fall.” 

****

CHIHUAHUAN DESERT, EL PASO, TEXAS, USA

Aaron Minyard lived in a single wide trailer in the middle of a valley in the desert of El Paso, Texas. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable existence, but he had never expected much for himself as a Minyard. He grew up in shit, may as well live in it when he was older. The important thing for Aaron was that he was out from under Riko’s clutches, regardless of what it had cost him.

Neil waited for four hours, tucked underneath the trailer, for Aaron to arrive home from work. He remained there for the fifteen minutes it took Aaron to smoke his cigarette outside, looking around the valley as though he suspected something. Then, without much consideration, Aaron entered him home. 

The moment Aaron turned on his record player, music filling the air surrounding the trailer, Neil crawled out and unsheathed his sword. 

There was a small crack between the door and the front step through which Neil could see through. As he peaked through he saw Aaron’s boots on the floor, his legs rocking back and forth as he sat in his rocking chair. 

Neil nearly laughed at his predictability. Aaron had always been a creature of habit. 

The record cut, and Neil pressed himself tightly against the side of the trailer as he heard Aaron get up to check outside his window. Neil didn’t dare to breath, and he wouldn’t risk moving. He wait there until he heard the music and the soft rocking of Aaron’s chair. 

Before that day where Aaron had succeeded—along with the rest of the deadly viper assassination squad—in putting Neil Josten into a coma that should have killed him, Neil hadn’t seen around in seven years. And they had never once gotten along, even though he was Andrew’s twin. 

Neil didn’t think he could ever forgiven Aaron for half of the fucked up shit he had done for Riko when they had all been working together, but there was definitely no way Neil would let the blood ties Aaron had to Andrew stand in the way of avenging Andrew’s death. 

As far as Neil was concerned, Riko had murdered the wrong brother. And he was here to correct that little mistake. 

Neil tensed, fixing his stance as he stood in front of the door. Remembering, as he always did before facing an enemy, the exact things the person had done to wrong him. So, when he brought his leg up to kick in the door to Aaron’s trailer, the last thing he expected—stupidly of course—was to get shot in the chest. 

It wasn’t deadly, and it took only a moment for Neil to realize as he landed on his back in the dirt some ten yards back. The moment he noticed was the moment of course, that agonizing pain began to fill his chest. 

“That stopped you right in your tracks, huh?” Aaron asked. As he walked closer he uncocked the shotgun and removed the empty shells. 

“No one, not even the great Neil Josten, is a badass with a double dose of rocksalt dug deep into their chest.” 

He kicked Neil’s sword away before crouching down beside him. 

“I would say it’s nice to see you,” Aaron started thoughtfully. “But we’d both know what a crock of shit that would be no?” 

Neil, seething with pain, gathered as much saliva as he could muster in his mouth, and spit in Aaron’s face. 

Aaron wiped at it lazily before grinning. He extended his fingers out and dug them sharply into Neil’s chest. It hurt so intensely that tears fell down Neil’s cheeks as he gasped out. 

Aaron stood before lazily kicking Neil over onto his side. Neil wasn’t even strong enough to protest. All he felt was a needle going into his ass, and then a moment later he was unconscious. 

Aaron pulled out his cellphone and hit the call key on the fourth number down. 

“What?” Allison demanded as he answered. 

“You won’t believe whose body is lying in front of me.” Aaron sat in the lawn chair he had positioned outside of his trailer, a small huff escaping his lips as he shifted his weight.    
“No,” Allison said softly. 

“That’s right. I’ve just caught the uncatchable boy.” 

“And did you kill him?” Allison’s voice was intrigued, curious and deadly just like she was. 

“Not yet. Shot him full of rock salt. But he’s so out of it at this point I could perform a coup-de-grace with a rock to his brains. Anyway…Guess what I’m holding in my hands right now?” 

Allison was impatient. “Not in the mood for your guessing games, Aaron.”

“A brand new Hanzo sword. And let me tell you, Al. It is sharp.” 

“Name your terms.”

“Drive down to me in the morning with two million in folded cash and I give you the greatest sword ever made by a man.” 

Allison was silent on the other line for a few moments. “One condition,” she said softly. “He must suffer to his last breath.” 

“That,” Aaron said as he glanced over at Neil’s body. “I can guarantee.” 

“See you in the morning then, millionaire.”

* * *

 

There was the distinct sound of metal scraping against rock and the soft thud of some material being shoveled away when Neil finally came to.

He was tied up, and his bindings were anything but loose, a belt keeping his legs together, and rope binding his wrists. When he opened his eyes Aaron was pulling a man Neil didn’t recognize out of the deep hole of a grave. He was on the ground, on his back when Aaron walked over. 

“Whoa,” said the man as they stood over Neil. “Look at those eyes. He’s fucking furious.” 

“Anything to say?” Aaron asked with a cocked eyebrow. 

Neil felt himself choke on his own tongue, anger ripping down his throat. 

“Silent treatment, huh?” The other man mused, a grin on his face. 

“Grab the feet. I’ll get the head.” 

He knew what was coming. He knew what they were going to do, and it was so stereotypically Aaron, Neil was shocked he had expected anything different. As soon as they grabbed hold of Neil’s body, he bucked wildly. He didn’t need to be untied, he just needed to be free. He would be able to figure his way out of this if only he could just get away. 

Aaron dropped him immediately, swinging his leg around Neil’s body so he could sit on his chest and pin him down. Neil continued to resist, until Aaron brought a pepper spray up to Neil’s face. 

“You see this, don’t you? It’s a can of mace. Do you see it?” Aaron demanded. Neil kept his eyes fixed on the can, only a few centimeters from his eyeball. Neil couldn’t look anywhere else. “Now, you’re going in the ground tonight. And I was going to bury you with this.” 

Aaron’s other hand brought up a flashlight, holding it right next to the can of mace. His knees kept Neil in place. 

“But if you’re going to act like a fucking ass, then I’m going to spray this entire can into your goddamn eyeballs. I’ll burn them right out of your fucking head. Then you’ll be blind and burning and buried alive. So, which is it going to be?” Aaron held the two options out in front of Neil.

Neil threw his head towards the flashlight. 

“Wise choice."

Aaron checked to make sure Neil wasn’t pulling anything fast before grabbing hold of his arms once more. 

Neil tried not to panic. He tried to remain calm, knowing how important it would be to maintain his breathing, to not waste the limited oxygen he would have access too. So as they hauled him into the small pine box, he remained as still as possible. He focused on keeping his breathing consistent. He counted as high as he could in as many different languages as he could, to distract himself. 

“All this time I’ve known you, Josten, and I’ve never heard you so fucking quiet. Makes me wonder what kind of friendship we might have had,” Aaron said finally as he leaned against the edge of the coffin. He pulled up the cover, starting to slide it on and paused before it covered Neil completely. 

“This is for what you did to my brother,” Aaron said through the small sliver of space he was still viewable. Then he slid the cover into place and darkness surrounded Neil as he held tight to the flashlight in his hands. Neil closed his eyes. It made the dark easier somehow. 

And then Neil waited, and listened. He heard the first nail go into the box, and he knew somehow that it was the beginning of the end. 


	11. The Cruel Tutelage of Kevin Day

** TEN YEARS AGO  **

** SOMEWHERE IN SOUTHERN CHINA **

 

Riko played the flute while Neil and Andrew sat across from each other around a campfire. He was telling them a story—one Andrew had heard a handful of times already. Neil’s eyes were wide as he soaked up every bit of knew knowledge. 

Riko had started the same way he always had, with the simple words _once upon a time_. He loved elaborate stories of consequences, of justice served through acts of vengeance. And given the history of each person sitting around the fire, Riko knew how to please his audience. 

“So began the legend of Kevin Day’s five-point-palm-exploding-heart technique,” Riko said sagely. 

“And what, pray tell,” Neil asked, sitting up a little further and leaning closer to the fire. “Is the five-point-palm-exploding-heart technique?” 

He caught Andrew’s eyes across the fire, watching the slow spread of a smile across his lips before bringing his attention back to Riko as he waited for an explanation. 

“He hits you in each of your five pressure point with the lightest of touches from his fingertips,” Riko explained. “And then he simply let’s you walk away. But once you’ve taken five steps, your heart explodes inside your body. You fall to the ground. Dead.” 

“Did he teach you that?” Neil asked of Andrew, eyes wide with wonder. 

Riko smiled and answered for him. “He teaches no one that particular technique.” 

“Not yet,” Neil said smugly. 

Riko let out a small laugh. “Fair enough. Now, let me give you a tiny piece of wisdom before you start on this journey.” His tone changed, growing suddenly quite serious. “Whatever Kevin Day says, obey. If you flash him, even for an instant, the slightest defiant eye he will pluck it out without hesitation. And if you open your mouth in any of the indignant ways you normally do, he will snap your neck and spine like they were twigs. And that will be the story of you.” 

The urge to respond was snuffed out as Neil took in the look in Riko’s eyes. Perhaps more terrifying, however, was the look on Andrew’s face, who matched Riko’s in near perfect symmetry. 

“Your mentality of no one to fear if they are not my father will not serve you here,” Riko said sternly. “There are worse things than fear, Neil. Don’t test Kevin.” 

There was no smug smile on Andrew’s face, no clever retort about Neil finally learning his lesson. Riko continued playing his flute, and for the rest of the evening they did not speak. 

In the morning, after driving the additional twenty miles to the temple, Andrew and Neil waited patiently for Riko to return from asking Kevin to accept Neil as his student. 

“He’s being serious, isn’t he?” Neil asked of Andrew after thirty minutes had passed. “About Kevin?” 

“Deadly,” Andrew confirmed. 

They didn’t speak more than that, but Neil allowed his thigh to brush against Andrew’s where they were leaning on the hood of the truck. Andrew didn’t push him away. 

When Riko came down the steep set of stone stairs that led up the the hill on which Kevin was located, he had considerable wounds across his face. 

“Did you get into a fight?” Neil demanded as Riko approached. 

“Friendly contest,” Riko said with a wave of his hand, only slightly out of breath. “Kevin will take you as a student.” 

“Why did he accept me?” Neil asked, cautious. 

“Because he is a very, very, very bitter and isolated man. And like all rotten bastards, they get lonely. Which has no effect on their character, but does teach them the value of company.” He handed Neil his duffel from the back of the truck and turned back towards he steps. 

“Just seeing those steps makes me ache,” Riko said, his breath finally normalizing. 

“You’ll have plenty of fun bringing buckets of water up and down them, won’t you Josten?” Andrew taunted. 

Neil ignored him. “When will I see you two again?” 

“When he tells me your done.” 

Neil’s eyes flashed to Andrew. They hadn’t known each other long, not more than two years, but already it felt more like leaving home than Neil had ever been familiar with. 

“When will that be?” 

“That is entirely on you,” Riko said. “Believe it or not. Now, remember. No backtalk or sarcasm. At least for the first year or so. Hopefully he will warm up to you.”

“Don’t be impatient,” Andrew added as he settled himself in the passengers seat. 

“It might take a little while,” Riko amended. “Despises Americans. Nothing but contempt for those who are undisciplined. And he hates red-heads.”

Neil brought his free hand up to his hair and tugged loosely at it and before he could say anything else, Riko was pulling the car into reverse.

“Bye, Neil.” And with that they drove away. 

Andrew was right. The steps were a bitch. By the time he got halfway to the top, the sun had fully risen and shone down with a ferocity Neil was unprepared for. He paused to peel of his sweatshirt and tie it haphazardly around his waist before he got moving again. There was a reason he preferred running on flat surfaces to scaling mountains—and the stairs felt much more like that later. 

Everything surrounding the grounds was overgrown. It was an old place, clear in its use and in its structure. There was a simple, practical beauty in it.

Despite Riko’s insistence that he train with Kevin, Neil did not know all that much about Kevin Day and his respective style. 

His mother, Kayleigh had worked with Riko’s uncle to establish and maintain a wildly successful crime syndicate separate and apart from the larger Moriyama holding. Following her death atyoung age, Kevin was sent to southern China to train with some of the top martial arts masters in the world. When, at 17, Riko came to visit him with an offer he believed Kevin could not refuse, Kevin insisted on staying. And so he had. 

There was deeper legend surrounding Kevin Day. That he had lived for hundreds of years, that he was somehow singularly responsible for the Shaolin Temple Massacre, but Neil had a hard time believing someone only ten or so years older than him was capable of such things. Even if he had been absorbed in temple life since he was three. 

When Neil arrived at the top, Kevin was already sitting at the end of the path waiting for him. He looked older than Neil expected, but just as dignified as he had expected. His legs were crossed, eyes calculating. Neil, keeping his eyes locked on Kevin’s the entire time knelt down before him. 

When it became clear Kevin wasn’t planning on saying anything, Neil opened his mouth. He didn’t have much practice with Chinese, to be honest, though he knew he always should have practiced harder given the line of work he was in. 

“Master,” he said in Mandarin. 

Kevin answered in Cantonese, cutting Neil off before he could finish. “Your mandarin is lousy. And you are not to speak unless you are spoken to. Is it too much to hope that you understand Cantonese?” 

Neil paused to steady his breathing before answering in Mandarin. “I speak Japanese very well—”

“I didn’t ask if you spoke Japanese. I want to know if you understand Cantonese.” 

Neil swallowed before answering in English. “A little.” 

“If you can’t understand me then I will speak to you as I would a dog. I’ll point and yell, and my messages will become clear that way.” 

“Riko is your master, is he not?” 

Again, in English. “Yes. He is.” 

“Your master tells me you are not entirely untrained. What training do you posses?” 

“I am proficient in tiger-crane style and I am more than proficient in the exquisite art of the samurai sword.” 

“Don’t make me laugh,” Kevin said flatly. “The exquisite art you profess is nothing more than waving around weapons hoping for a target to stick. That is an endeavor reserved for children and idiots.” 

Neil felt his anger seething, and apparently so did Kevin. 

“Your anger is amusing. Do you believe you are my match?” 

“No,” answered in Cantonese. 

Kevin’s eyes narrowed. “Are you aware I kill at will?” 

“Yes.” 

“Is it your wish to die?” 

“No.” 

“Then you are stupid. So deeply stupid. Now, stand up. Let me look at your ridiculous face.” 

Neil stood up, turning his stance. 

“So, my pathetic friend, is there anything you _can_ do?” Neil may be pissed, but he knew better from years of training than to answer a rhetorical question. “Go to the rack.” 

Neil shrugged off his backpack, throwing it down onto the ground with as much force as he could muster. 

“Remove the sword.” 

Neil didn’t need to be told twice. 

“Let’s see how skilled you really are. If you can land, even one blow, I will bow down and call you my master. Now, begin.” 

Neil lunged with everything he had. In a fight with anyone else, it would have been easy. He was getting good enough, in fact, to go toe-to-toe with Riko. But with Kevin, everything Neil knew about fighting was thrown out the window. It wasn’t a matter of landing a single blow, Neil could hardly get close enough to Kevin to cut through the air surrounding him. He didn’t let Neil hold onto the sword for longer than a minute before sending him spiraling backwards. 

Kevin’s face remained hard. “Your swordsmanship is amateur at best.” 

He threw the sword aside, out of the way, and beckoned Neil to come closer. 

“I asked you to demonstrate what you know and you demonstrated not a god-damn thing. Let’s see your tiger-crane.” 

Neil knew almost as soon as they began to fight using their respective martial arts styles that there was no way he had a hope of meeting Kevin’s level. In any regular fight, he was used to be the most skilled person in the room, but there was no hope for that with Kevin. Kevin had Neil flattened on his back three times in the first minute, but when he laughed, Neil lost all regard for logic. 

He lunged, as usual, with a trick up his sleeve. In this case, it was a rock. And it got him nowhere closer to taking down Kevin. 

Kevin reached out for Neil’s elbow and shoulder, twisting to lock him into place until the rock fell from Neil’s outstretched hand. 

“You expect to rely on undignified tricks in order to take a stronger opponent down? Like all Americans, you think you can use the easy way out.” 

Kevin twisted harder as Neil cried out in pain. 

“Excruciating isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Neil yelled. He hated the sound of his voice—it was a version of himself he hadn’t heard in years. 

“If it were my wish, I could rip it off.” 

“No, please don’t,” Neil begged, screaming out. 

“It’s my arm now,” Kevin said lazily. “You don’t really have much say in the matter. Do you admit there is nothing you can do right now?” 

“Yes.” 

“Compared to me you are helpless as a worm fighting an eagle?” 

“Yes.” 

“Is this the kind of power you wish to possess?” 

“Yes.” 

He pushed Neil away, letting him out of the agonizing grip. Neil fell to the ground, clutching him arm close to his chest. 

“Training begins tomorrow.” 

To say that their initial meeting was any indication of the training would be an inadequate description. Compared to the training that would come in year four, the first year was practically a cake walk, though it certainly did not feel that way at the time. 

Year one was all about adjusting to the mental game Kevin Day kept playing. Neil had never thought he would be the type to miss a place he had been living before, but living on the grounds was a constant exercise in mental strength. The lack of insulation meant that when the sun beat down on the stones, the place was an oven. And when it rained, it would get so cold Neil could see his breath. Using chopsticks proved to be an impossible task, so for the first seven months he ate his meal a single rice grain at a time. Kevin insisted he use the chopsticks and ‘do it right or not at all’ and had taken to throwing Neil’s food on the ground in annoyance on several occasions. 

But the absolute worst of it that year—worse than carrying buckets of water up stairs, or the excruciating training at 3am—ended up being a task Neil never could have imagined being a problem: putting his fist through a piece of wood. 

“Now that your arm belongs to me,” Kevin said on the very first day of training. “I want it strong.” 

They were standing at the top of a small hill, overlooking the rest of the temple grounds and besides a small structure with a piece of fitted wooden board there was nothing around. Kevin, without winding up, broke through the wood with his fist. 

“Can you do that?” 

“Not that close,” Neil said skeptically. 

“Then you can’t. What if your energy is three inches in front of you? What will you do then? Curl into a ball?” He didn’t wait for Neil to answer. “Begin.” 

Neil brought his palm against the wood, feeling the rough grain of it before closing his hand into a fist. He’d never punched something this close, now that he thought about it. He let a short breath escape his mouth before punching at the center of the wood. 

He let out a hiss almost as soon as it made contact. Sparks of pain shot up phis knuckles and through the small bones of his hand. 

“Again.” 

Neil hesitated only a second before continuing on, he punched again, and this time the skin of his middle knuckle burst open. 

Kevin scoffed, his clear “It is the wood that should fear your hand, not the other way around. No wonder you fail, you acquiesce before you even begin. Now, do it again.” 

And so, Neil did.

* * *

Three more deep breaths. That was what Neil allowed himself before turning the flashlight on. Three more deep breaths in the complete darkness of his coffin. He resounded, when he finally opened his eyes and turned his flashlight on, that he would leave all thoughts of Kevin behind, and focus himself completely on the task at hand. It was a skill Kevin himself had taught Neil. 

“Alright, Kevin,” Neil said with a small smile playing on his face. “Here I come.” 

Neil pressed his palm against the lid of the coffin, tapping along its surface in an attempt to find a weak point. When he found one, he closed his eyes, thankful, before beginning the attempts to break himself free from the bindings. 

Aaron, idiot that he was, had not bothered to check inside Neil’s shoe for the trusty knife he kept folded between the seam. And, given that he had used a belt to keep Neil’s legs in place instead of rope, bringing his legs free was a relatively simple matter of shifting motions. Neil moved this way and that to kick his shoe off and bring it closer towards his body. It was not an easy task, moving with just inches of space, but he somehow managed to get the shoe close enough that he was able to slide the folded knife out and into his palm. 

Cutting himself free with the dulled blade was a matter of persistence, and as soon as the first bit of rope broke, Neil closed his eyes and kissed the knife in gratitude. He stayed there for a moment, rubbing his raw wrists and flexing his hands, so thankful and so at ease that he felt once again, the overwhelming rush that he could truly get through anything. 

When he was younger, those were words he never would have considered using when describing himself—hopeful, grateful, assured. But like everything, it was Andrew who made him see that. 

Neil kept his eyes closed a moment longer. 

It would have been easy, he supposed to stay there. To die in the coffin, thinking of Andrew and remembering the moments they had been allowed to share. He’d lived an eventful life. More eventful than most, and it was a truth of fact that he probably did deserve to die for all of the killing he had been responsible for in his life. Neil granted himself one single minute to follow down that path before he talked himself out of it. 

He owed Andrew more than dying this way. And he was going to get what he deserved. 

Neil checked once more for the weakest part of the wood, and when he heard that hollow sound reverberate back inside the coffin, he brought his fist up to the point and punched with everything he had. Blood streaked along the grain of the wood following the third punch, but he understood, finally what Kevin meant about acquiescing. There was no option here, no option but to escape, and so Neil had nothing to fear as he punched through the surface of the coffin. 

Dirt filled his mouth, clouded his vision, tore along his skin, but he couldn’t focus on any of that. This was the last piece, he’d broken free of the binds, punched through the coffin, and this was the last part. Getting out. Escaping. This was the easy part. He just had to keep climbing, keep clinging onto whatever he could to drag himself up. Keeping reaching his hands out, grasping at anything solid until he broke the surface. The moment when he felt his hand pierce through the ground, Neil knew it was seconds until he could rest. The hardest push was always the last bit. 

And when he finally broke free, when he pulled himself out of the dirt in the coffin, he laid on his back, catching his breath with deep ridiculous pants, staring up at the stars with a smile on his face. 


	12. Al and I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil sees to Allison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know its been quite a while since I've updated this. But after this chapter just two more to wrap up the rest of the story. I appreciate everyone who has read and continues reading this story. Thank you again!

As Neil climbed over the plateau that overlooked Aaron’s valley, the sun was just beginning to rise. With the low angle of the sun shining just above Neil, it was nearly impossible to make out his figure from where Aaron sat in his living area. He wasn’t looking anyway, confident in a job well done. 

Aaron had been waiting for Allison to arrive with his money so that this whole shitty existence could be put behind him finally. But once she wast here, a suitcase full of money in her hand, he couldn’t help but go into all of the details of Neil Josten’s death. Perhaps she had counted on that when she had stepped inside the trailer. 

“Gotta give it you to, Aaron. That’s a pretty fucked up way to die. What’s the name of the grave she’s buried under?” 

“Paula Schultz,” Aaron said, enunciating each vowel carefully. 

She wrote it down in a small notebook she kept in her chest pocket before leaning against the counter. 

“Sword’s on the living room table,” Aaron said distractedly as he poured himself a cup of coffee. 

Allison didn’t need to be told twice. All her life, it seemed, she had been waiting for the moment where she could hold a Hattori Hanzo sword. Despite her loyalty to Riko and her skill as an assassin, she’d always come just shy of getting her own. As her hands gripped the smooth lacquered surface of Neil’s sword, the sheer killing power of the sword seemed to thrum through its surface. She unsheathed it carefully, pausing to look at Aaron before examine the edge of the blade. 

“How does this sword compare to your old Hanzo?” 

He laughed mirthlessly. “If you’re going to compare a Wymack sword, you compare it to every sword that was ever made, that wasn’t made by David Wymack.” 

Allison didn’t respond. 

“So,” Aaron asked after a moment. “Which R are you filled with?” 

“What?” 

Aaron leaned against the counter as he explained. “They say the number one killer of old people is retirement. If people have a job to do, they tend to live a little longer so that they can continue to do it. I always figured that was the case with warriors and their enemies. So, that begs the question: Which R are you filled with? Regret or relief?” 

Allison smiled coyly. “A little bit of both.” 

“Bullshit,” Aaron decided. “I’m sure you feel _a little bit of both,_ but which one do you feel more of?” 

The smile on Allison’s face grew serpentine. “Regret.” 

At that Aaron let out a small laugh. “Well, gotta give it to you, Al. He sure had a reputation about him. My brother always thought he was so goddamn smart. And I tried to tell him…He just had a smart mouth.” 

Aaron shook his head, grabbing the suitcase from where it sat on the floor next to the door so he could set it on his kitchen table. He unzipped it, and looking at all the money inside let out a wide smile. 

“Thanks a bunch, Al.” 

Allison nodded her head. 

The stacks of bills were crisp as Aaron pulled them out on by one. He was giddy with the anticipation of it, running the bills through his hands before setting it off in small piles next to the suitcase. 

When he pulled out the finally stack of the top layer, he was surprised for a moment to see a snake in the midst of the suitcase. This surprise lasted long enough for it to lunge out, strike out, and snap its fangs three separate times into Aaron’s face. 

He stood immediately, reacting faster than his body could feel the pain of the bites, and threw the suitcase as far away from himself as he could manage. He struggled, groping out for purchase along any surface he could his hands on, but his arms were suddenly not working the way the were supposed to. He knocked things over in his desperation, bottles on his counter flying to the ground, the back of his chair collapsing under his weight. And then his body fell, paralyzed and sweating as he curled into the fetal position on his kitchen floor trying vainly for any breath. 

“I’m sorry, Aaron,” Allison said as he stilled. “That was rude of me. I’d like to introduce you to my good friend the Black Mamba.” 

Aaron’s left eye was swollen shut, his head moving back and forth on the ground as he tried to make sense of Allison’s voice and the intense pain that came with venom coursing through his veins. It felt like everything in his body was being stuffed up with concrete. 

“You know, before I picked that little guy up, I have to admit I researched him on the internet. Fascinating creatures, Black Mambas.” Allison made her way over to the chair before taking a seat. She pulled a small notebook out from her pocket and flipped it open. She took a moment to secure a cigarette from the pack she kept in her jacket and took a long and satisfying pull before speaking. 

“Now. Listen to this.” She cleared her throat. “In Africa, the saying goes that in the Bush an elephant can kill you, a Lion can kill you, and black mamba can kill you. But only with the mamba, and this has been true since the beginning of time, is death certain. Hence it’s handle _death incarnate_.” There was a sarcastic lilt to her voice, so that the end of her sentences intoned upwards as though she was asking a question. It served to both mock and pity, but Aaron could barely keep hold of the words let alone their meaning. 

“It’s neurotoxic venom is one of the most potent in all of nature, stopping the heart and causing paralysis. The venom of the black mamba can kill a human being in 4 hours if bitten on say the ankle or the thumb. However, a bite to the face can bring death by paralysis within twenty minutes.” 

Allison looked up from her notebook, pointing at Aaron for emphasis. “Now, you’re going to want to pay close attention, because this concerns you…The amount of venom that can be delivered from a single bite can be gargantuan. You know, I’ve always liked that word, gargantuan. I so rarely have the opportunity to use it in a sentence. If not treated with anti-venom quickly, ten to fifteen milligrams can be fatal to humans. However, the black mamba can deliver up to 100 to 400 milligrams of venom from a single bite.” 

Aaron let out a few shuttering breaths as Allison put away the notebook. She pulled hard on her cigarette while she watched him writhe around. 

“Now, in these last agonizing minutes of life you have left, let me answer that question you asked early a little more thoroughly.” 

Allison stubbed out the rest of her cigarette on the table before leaning forward. 

“Right now, the biggest ‘R’ I feel is regret. Regret that maybe the greatest warrior of our time met his end at the hands of some white trash, alchy scrub like you…Neil deserved better. I have to admit though,” she smiled as she leaned closer, looking him directly in his eyes. "Feels good to be the one to kill you. No one watching your back now I suppose. No brother. No Neil. No Riko. You get to die all alone. Just like you always said you wanted." 

Aaron, for his final breath, took a deep gasp. When he stilled Allison clucked her tongue, unimpressed by his display. She stood and started packing her money back into the suitcase. 

Her phone rang. 

“Riko,” she said as she answered. “I have some bad news. Aaron is dead. Josten put a black mamba in his trailer. Don’t worry though, Neil is dead now.” 

“Confirmed?” 

“Let’s just say you start to feel sentimental? Head to Huntington Ceremony in Barstow, California. Pick up some flowers before you go. Lay them on the headstone marked Paula Schultz. You’ll be standing on the final resting spot of one, Nathaniel Wesninski.” 

Allison muttered some reassuring words to Riko before hanging up. As she reached for the door handle, ready to drive back with her newly acquired sword Neil kicked it open. 

Allison didn’t even looked shocked, if Neil were being honest. She was ready to defend herself against the sharp kick Neil aimed at her neck, wrestling him to floor as though she had expected him to return from the grave this whole time. 

Neil didn’t stay pinned down for that long. He rotated his hips forward, altering his position so he could knee her in the stomach and jump up for a counter attack. Allison grabbed her sword, pulling sharply on the scabbard to unsheathe it, but there was hardly enough room in the single-wide trailer. The sword wasn’t even half-way unsheathed before she hit the back of the wall. She stared at the sword for half a moment, shocked that it was rendered useless for a second before Neil slammed the handle back into the sword, using the momentum to drag Allison away. She brought the scabbed sharp against his limbs, and as good as he was at blocking, it hurt like hell to have the sheathed sword slam into his forearms and shins. 

Neil aimed for her face, but Allison twisted her body to the exposed end of the blade was flush with Neil’s neck. She worked a foot around his ankle before dropping him down back onto his back. Neil rolled out of the way as the blade sliced into his cheek. 

He hissed out at the contact, bringing his fingers to the wound, before reaching out for the nearest object to knock Allison down. His hands wrapped around the thin metal pole of Aaron’s floor lamp, and he used all his force to crack the shade and lightbulb into Allison’s head. She swirled at the contact, dropping the sword and leaning on the kitchen counter for support as Neil advanced, striking out at her forearms with the pole of the lamp. She dug the foot of her heel into his shin and Neil heard the sick crunch before he felt it. Allison suddenly had the upper hand, and she used it to throw Neil on the ground and reach out for anything to knock him around with. 

She landed on a wooden chair in the corner of the room, bringing it up and swiping at Neil’s back as he scrambled to bring himself up from the ground. Neil felt the air shoot out of his chest as he fell face first on the ground. Allison backed up, wanting the extra acceleration as she screamed out, ready to bring one foot up into the air in what could definitely be a debilitating blow. Neil had seen it before when he was training with Kevin. He had also seen how to block it. He crouched, ready to grab at her knee and upper thigh before swinging Allison into the wall connecting the living room from the bathroom. With her momentum, she trust right through, knocking into the sink as she went. 

Neil pounced on top of her, arms tight around her neck. Before he could feel the pull of her struggling for her last breath, she brought a piece of cracked mirror up and into his rib, knocking it in place with her elbow as she struggled against his hand. She scrambled up, trying to go back for the sword in the living room, but Neil was already back on her, pulling her into the bathroom. She made it as far as the hallway before he was able to knock her down. She twisted in his grip, bringing the heel of her palm down sharply onto his nose. It cracked on impact and Neil let go in shock. 

Allison jumped up, and Neil did the same half a second too slow. She kicked him, hard, square in the chest and he went barreling down the small hallway and right into the nightstand at Aaron’s bed. 

Allison ran for the living room when Neil spotted it.

Hidden inside a set of golf clubs, was the unmistakable seal of a Hatori Hanzo sword. Neil reached out for it desperately, unseating just a bit to check for the message he knew Riko had had engraved. 

_To Aaron. The Only Minyard I Ever Loved - Riko_

Neil smiled, feeling the heat of the sword wrap around his wrists and send sparks of assurance through his forearms. He stood, sword unsheathed and ready to strike, as Allison came back into the other end of the hallway, her own sword was similarly held. 

“I guess Aaron lied about his Hanzo sword,” Allison said, eyeing the piece of weaponry. 

“Guess so.” 

“Well,” Allison smiled. “Sword is only as good as the wielder.” 

“Al?” 

“Neil?” 

“Something I’ve always wanted to know, just between us two. What _did_ you say to Kevin Day to make him snatch out your eye?” Neil felt that horrible smile clawing its way across his face. 

At this, Allison smirked. “I called him a miserable crippled old fool.” 

“Bad idea,” Neil remarked. 

“Know what I did?” Allison asked innocently, “I _killed_ that miserable old fool. Poisoned him. And as he lay dying, I told him exactly what a miserable old fool he was.”

At Neil’s expression, Allison started laughing. “That’s right. I killed your _master_ ,” she leered. “And now, I’m going to kill you. With your own sword no less, which in the very immediate future will become my sword.” 

“Bitch,” Neil muttered. “You don’t have a future.” 

The hallway was not long enough for them to do anything than strike out in front of them. No duplicity, just the sound of metal hitting metal, with no hope for defensive positions. They ran at each other, footing nearly equal, pressing all the weight they had against their swords for the upper hand when they clashed together. The edges of each blade where right near each of their faces. They were so close Neil could feel Allison’s breath on his cheeks. 

He knew he couldn’t hold out much longer like this. She had the upper hand—more rested, better grip on their deadlock, a snarky smile on her face. She’d break the hold and there would be nothing more of him. 

Neil, so quickly it was hardly perceptible in the last moments Allison had vision, brought his hand up and snatched Allison’s eye clean out of the socket. 

The chaos was instant. 

Allison reached up to her eye socket, limbs flailing helplessly as she screamed at the top of her lungs. In desperation and confusion she ran into the wall, and upon hitting it with the force she was moving about with, it knocked her on the floor in the bathroom. It was nonsensically, her screams for Neil to come closer so she could kill him, mixed with terrible screeches of pain and fury. She brought herself up from the ground using the sink, throwing punches wildly out into air. Her palm wrapped around the shattered glass of the mirror, slicing wild lines into her hands as she continued kicking and screaming. 

Neil watched on for a long moment, completely unimpressed by her display. 

He had better things to do than listen to Allison scream. 

Neil grabbed his sword from where Al had dropped it on the ground and as he walked out of the trailer, he passed by the black mamba already making its way towards the bathroom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, just two chapters left and then it is all done. At this point everyone else in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad has been killed except for one Riko Moriyama. 
> 
> Come prompt me on tumblr: @gladiatorgrl 
> 
> Thanks again!


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